INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MODERN LETTERS Te P¯utahi Tuhi Auaha o te Ao Newsletter – 13 August 2010 ISSN: 1178-9441 This is the 159th in a series of occasional newsletters from the Victoria University centre of the International Institute of Modern Letters. For more information about any of the items, please email modernletters. 1. Story & script guru at the IIML ......................................................................... 1 2. Four by four .......................................................................................................... 2 3. First fictions and second helpings ....................................................................... 2 4. Sparks fly ............................................................................................................... 2 5. Writers Read: Witi Ihimaera .............................................................................. 3 6. Summer writing workshops ................................................................................. 3 7. ‘The long and short of it' ...................................................................................... 4 8. From the whiteboard ............................................................................................ 4 9. Turbine reminder .................................................................................................. 5 10. Brazilian writer’s block ....................................................................................... 5 11. Fresh shorts ........................................................................................................... 5 12. Baysting leaves Apra Board ................................................................................ 5 13. Writers’ festivals north and south ...................................................................... 6 14. Poetic CPR ............................................................................................................ 6 15. Advice for poetry readings .................................................................................. 7 16. Writing for children ............................................................................................. 7 17. Recent web reading .............................................................................................. 7 18. Great lists of our time ........................................................................................... 9 _____________________________________________________________________ 1. Story & script guru at the IIML In our final international masterclass for the year, Christopher Vogler will be working with the 2010 MA (Script) students at the IIML, where his book The Writer's Journey is one of the set texts for the course. Vogler is a veteran story consultant for major Hollywood film companies and a respected teacher of filmmakers and writers around 1 the globe. The Writer's Journey, applying the ancient patterns of myth to modern story-telling, has helped to shape the way people in movies, TV, and publishing think about stories and is required reading at many film schools and literature programmes. Vogler has influenced the screenplays of movies from The Lion King to Fight Club to The Thin Red Line and most recently wrote the first installment of Ravenskull, a Japanese-style manga or graphic novel. 2. Four by four It’s another busy week for literature in Wellington. Tomorrow (Saturday 14 August) from 4 pm, four Kapiti Coast writers, Hinemoana Baker (Koiwi Koiwi), Sylvie Haisman (This Barren Rock), Lynn Jenner (Dear Sweet Harry) and Tina Makereti (Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa) will be celebrating their recently published books of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction at Valhalla Cafe in Raumati South, from 4pm on Saturday 14 August. There will be readings, book sales and signings, and cake to share with the audience. Beverages and cafe food will be available; entry is free. 3. First fictions and second helpings On Monday 16 August you can catch the ‘First Fictions’ of IIML MA (Page) graduates Craig Cliff and Tina Makereti on stage at the Te Papa Marae from 12.15- 1.15 pm as part of our Writers on Mondays series. Craig Cliff’s A Man Melting and Tina Makereti’s Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa were both launched recently to favourable reviews, and they will read from their work and discuss their different approaches to the short story form with David Geary. That evening the New Zealand Poetry Society features Lyall Bay writer James McNaughton. McNaughton completed his MA at the IIML in the same year as Michael Laws and his first book, a collection of prose poems called The Stepmother Tree, was published in 2001 by Laws’ Darius Press, which released in tandem with a rugby biography, The Norm Hewitt Story. McNaughton then spent several years teaching in Japan, returning in 2008 to publish a second book, I Want More Sugar with Steele Roberts. The meeting starts with an open mic at 7.30pm at the Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave St, Wellington. Entry $5 ($3 for NZPS members). 4. Sparks fly Seven more Victoria creative writing graduates - Pip Adam, Airini Beautrais, Tim Corballis, Chloe Lane, Anna Livesey, Bill Nelson, Lucy Orbell – will join poetry workshop convenor James Brown in illuminating City Gallery next week when they premiere new pieces created in response to the works of the eight artists featured in the exhibition Ready to Roll. They roll out the new in The Sparks Fly Upwards on Wednesday 18 August at 6pm in the Adam Auditorium. Entry is free, and a limited edition publication produced in conjunction with this event will be available for purchase on the night ($5). 2 If film is your thing, you might want to check out Adaptation and Collaboration, an event starting at 7pm the same night at the Film Archive (84 Taranaki St) in which Philippa Boyens (Lord of the Rings, King Kong, The Lovely Bones) talks with M.C. Linda Niccol (Second Hand Wedding) about turning literature into cinema. Places are limited, though, so please register with [email protected]. 5. Writers Read: Witi Ihimaera On Thursday 19 August at 6pm you can hear Witi Ihimaera read from and discuss his recent work at Massey University in Wellington. The television film adaptation of his 1995 novel Nights in the Gardens of Spain will be shown on New Zealand television later this year. His current projects include a short story collection, Purity of Ice and, with producer Charlotte Yates, a show which will premiere at the Auckland Arts Festival in 2010. He will be speaking in the Theatrette (10A02), Museum Building, Massey University, Buckle Street, Wellington, Entrance D, (access Theatrette from East side of Building). There is limited seating, though, so they’d like you to rsvp (acceptances only) to [email protected] by today, Friday 13 August. Confirmation of space being available will be by email. 6. Summer writing workshops Every year we offer a special workshop taught by outstanding Creative Writing graduates from the University of Iowa. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is America’s oldest and most prestigious creative writing programme, and numbers among its graduates a dozen winners of the Pulitzer Prize. Raymond Carver, John Irving and Flannery O’Connor are among the most distinguished fiction writers to have come through Iowa. Poets include Robert Bly, Jorie Graham, and US poet laureates Rita Dove and Mark Strand. Over the summer of 2010/2011 two graduates of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop will convene workshops in prose and poetry at the IIML. 1. Prose stream: Courage and Tenderness This short fiction workshop invites you to write in the company of writers who demonstrate courage and tenderness in language, story, and meaning. Along the way, we’ll explore the challenges they took on, the mysteries they delved into, and the strength and quality of the feelings they drew from themselves – so that you can advance your own work as a writer. Authors will likely include Alice Munro, Dylan Thomas, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Bolano, and Anne Michaels. The convenor of this workshop is Thomas Fox Parry. His fiction deals with love, both awkward and grand, heroism, both big and small, as well as strangeness and awe in the midst of adventure. He has a novel and a collection of interlinked stories in the works. Aside from writing, he has worked as a mover, donut maker, prison tour guide and coat-check boy. 2. Poetry stream 3 According to the poet Robert Creeley, ‘we make with what we have, and in this way anything is worth looking at.’ And according to Louis Zukofsky, ‘poetry is derived obviously from everyday existence (real or ideal).’ Through reading many modern poets and their statements of poetics, we will attempt to figure out where meaning is found – and made – in poetry. Through writing experiments and workshops, we will focus on ways to work within constraints of the poem. All that is required is willingness, and inquisitiveness, and a sense of humour. The convenor of this workshop is Alan Felsenthal. He was the Associate Editor for Poetry at The Iowa Review, and has taught Creative Writing at the University of Iowa. He co-edits a chapbook press known as The Song Cave. His work has appeared in Microfilme Magazine, Hannah, improbable object, and The Iowa Review. Both courses run from 6 January -11 February, and involve two 3-hour workshops each week. For full details see our website. 7. ‘The long and short of it' Unity Books is offering a new short story prize this year with two categories: stories under 1,000 words and stories